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Managing Your Child’s Holiday Expectations Part 2

Date Published:

December 23rd, 2015

How do you deal with your child’s unrealistic holiday expectations?

During the holiday season, many kids focus in on the gifts they are about to receive, but this can lead to a “gimmie, gimmie, gimmie” attitude that many parents don’t appreciate. That’s why, in our previous post, our child care experts in Monroe went over a few tips for managing your child’s holiday expectations. Today, our day care center will be finishing up this blog series with these last few tips:

#3. Make sure that your children understand that it is a wish list.

Many kids don’t understand the difference between a wish list and a “whatever I write down my parents will buy” list. Be clear with them that what they write down may not be what they actually get, and let them know that the point of the list is to give you ideas on which gifts they might like.

#4. Set up clear limitations before they create their wishlist.

Don’t set your kids up to expect to get everything on their list, and make your limitations clear from the beginning. Consider using the Want-Need-Wear-Read rule. This rule allows your child to get one gift they want, one they need, one they can wear and one they can read.

#5. Come up with a family wish list.

Teach your child that the holidays are more than just about material goods, and come up with a wish list as a family. This wish list could include having family dinner, cutting down your own holiday tree, decorating the tree as a family and any other holiday adventures you would like your family to participate in.